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Re: Stone spheres

Hi All, Well said Stan. In one of my philosophy groups of 400 plus I practically beg for criticism, but with no suggestions, the group as a whole, especially

Message 1 of 7
, May 14, 2008

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Hi All,

Well said Stan.

In one of my philosophy groups of 400 plus I practically beg for
criticism, but with no suggestions, the group as a whole, especially
the new moderator is very one sided which contradicts philosophy in
general and basically is causing stagnation because sometime we forget
why we are where we are and that is to be further educated.

I was wondering if it would be ok to quote you Dr. Stan, as a reminder.

>
> Rick/Oz -
>
> I certainly don't mind argument - facilitating (polite) argument is
> one of the reasons this board was created.
>
> I used an image of the Central America spheres because those are the
> most famous. It's true the article I linked was about the natural
> formation of the New Zealand spheres. That, of course, does not prove
> that the Central American ones were formed in similar manner.
>
> But the hardness of the stone in Central America does not preclude
> natural formation. As the Wikipedia entry on concretions points out...
>
> "They are commonly composed of a carbonate mineral such as calcite; an
> amorphous or microcrystalline form of silica such as chert, flint, or
> jasper; or an iron oxide or hydroxide such as goethite and hematite.
> They can also be composed of other minerals that include dolomite,
> ankerite, siderite, pyrite, marcasite, barite and gypsum."
>
> Some of the latter are very hard minerals.
>
> As far as granite goes, I have seen spheroids formed in kettles below
> waterfalls where rocks are tumbled in the kettle by the water motion.
> You can see these at Interstate Park on the MN-Wisc border and
> probably at many other places.
>
> Again, I'm not construing that as proof of natural formation of the
> Central American spheres - just as a suggestion of possible natural
> modes of genesis.
>
> Congenially,
>
> Stan
>
>
>
>
> --- In ancient_waterways_society@yahoogroups.com, "Rick Osmon"
> <ozman@> wrote:
> >
> Stan,
>
> Those are great links, but I don't see the "perfection" of the
> spherical shape in the natural versions that is evident in the
> "finds". Also, IIRC, the CA versions are either limestone or granite
> instead of mudstone. Limestone may form interesting concretions, but
> granite nyet.
>
> Please don't misconstrue that I am trying to be argumentative, but
> what is it about the natural rocks in the south Pacific that makes
> you think the CA examples are natural?
>
> > Oz
>

Chris Patenaude

Hey Stan, :-) [P.S. Written on top instead of at the bottom... i wrote the following as kneejerk reaction to the post (dang, backlogged again) before i read

Message 2 of 7
, May 15, 2008

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Hey Stan, :-)
[P.S. Written on top instead of at the bottom... i
wrote the following as kneejerk reaction to the post
(dang, backlogged again) before i read the rest of the
thread(s). OK, you replied to Oz that Natural
elsewhere doesn't = Natural everywhere else, too. But
now that my bit is written, i'm too rushed and lazy to
change what's already down... gotta run]

Now now, don't go throwin' the Baby out with the
Bathwater! (grin)

Of course, Nature loves round things as much as she
abhors vacuums. (Well, so do i, my Dirt Devil is
giving me no end of problems, lately...) But as is
obvious, with a bit of thinktime, us nutty humans will
EVERLUVINly be facinated by Natural objects and set
our caps to emulate, recreate, copy and embue
intrigueing, found objects with spiritual or religious
symbolism.

Most certainly, given a plethora of ways, Natural
Forces will create round things out of nothing or
break down huge things into round things with water
action. Just because one finds spheres in Natural
settings does not cross-reason in the least that the
Central Amn are not artifactual. Nature has created
the most marvelous networks of caverns and caves. Does
that mean the NY subway system is Natural? I dont
thiiiiink so! LOL

One only needs to examine the bulk of the C.Amn items
to see the carving textures left by the rock-carving
techniques perfected by both Andean cultures to the
south and Olmec/Mayan cultures to the north. The
finished spheres themselves, for the most part, are
covered in symbolic script and petroglyphic carvings,
to top off their artifactual confirmation.

For stonecarvers of such skill, it was childsplay to
make a reasonably round rock. In fact, they probably
employed child labor to get a lot of the roughing out
done. The techniques are the same used in Egypt, Rapa
Nui, India and Bolivia. You take a rounded river
"pebble" the size of a large cantelope and start
dropping it in a controlled, turning motion against
the larger one to be rounded. Gravity creates a lot of
the 'carving' energy for you. Both the larger stone
and the pounder become rounder and more cooperative to
the process as the task progresses.

And, no, the man-carved spheres are NOT 'perfectly'
round, far from it. They vary as much as 3/4 inch out
of round in reality. Less if done by a better
craftsman. But still, it's a rough-measure using a
cord and eyeball confirmation in the end. They just
LOOK exact when sitting partially sunk in the ground,
as most are. Our own vision cortex will 'adjust' the
picture our mind is interpreting to make the illusion
of perfection more complete than it really is.

> I have for years been fascinated by the stone
> spheres found in banana
> plantations and have assumed they were man-made. I
> found out
> otherwise this morning. Full story for those
> interested at my blog
> entry -
>
>

Chris - I have to respond to something in particular that you talked about. (It goes far afield from the subject of this group, but your comparison to

Message 3 of 7
, May 24, 2008

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Chris -

I have to respond to something in particular that you talked about. (It goes far afield from the subject of this group, but your comparison to Egyptian stone cutting needs to be addressed and not given a pass).

You said:

For stonecarvers of such skill, it was childsplay to make a reasonably round rock. In fact, they probably employed child labor to get a lot of the roughing out done. The techniques are the same used in Egypt, Rapa Nui, India and Bolivia. You take a rounded river "pebble" the size of a large cantelope and start dropping it in a controlled, turning motion against the larger one to be rounded.

This just is not so. Read up on the calculations done by Christopher Dunn about how much time it takes to remove granite (at least some of the basaltic Costa Rican stones are close to granite in hardness). See http://www.gizapower.com/, his web site. Chris is, besides being a good friend of mine, THE man who has brought attention to the SILLINESS of the archaeologists' idea of dropping stone balls as a means of 'machining' stone. The stone removal rate is SO freaking small that to make one of the obelisks such as the large one in Aswan (see this picture of the one Chris did calculations on: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/lostempires/obelisk/images/cuttingslide02.jpg) would take 80+ years with people working as close together as possible, round the clock.

Also there is this (Chris is the man in the green shirt) http://www.gizapower.com/Articles/gyp_037.jpg (a modern attempt to make a sarcophagus at Memphis by this method, which attempt was done for TV, and which is a CHEAT). NOTE THAT THE MATERIAL IS NOT GRANITE, BUT LIMESTONE, a far easier stone to cut. Why didn't they try it on granite? Because they knew it wouldn't work worth a diddly damn.

Until Chris challenged them, the Egyptologists told lay people that the granite and diorite was cut with copper tools. Copper tools, being far softer than granite, have had - since the beginning of the Earth - absolutely ZERO chance of cutting granite, and those eons include that time period when the arkies were selling that argument, thinking that lay people were stupid.

NOW they have changed their tune, but only to the extent of the pathetic crude attempts to cut stone in this manner - the wrong stone even - and the results even with limestone are completely abysmal.

To see what kind of cutting WAS possible in Egypt, see Chris' link at http://www.gizapower.com/pma/index.htm which shows photos of VERY LARGE DIAMETER SAW CUTS and what can only be SONICALLY DRILLED HOLES.

I won't even go into the precision that exists in Egyptian stonecutting. Being a mechanical engineer, I (less so than Chris, who has been both a Master Machinist AND a Chief Engineer) know that precision is dependent on controlling the position and motions of both the object being cut and the cutting tool and also accounting for wear of the cutting tool edge.

Chris acknowledges that a few artifacts in Egypt show evidence of being made by the method you describe and as touted by Nova producers and Egyptologists, but those artifacts are pale, horrible examples of Egyptian capabilities.

ONLY CHRIS has any explanation at all for the absolutely beautiful and precise cutting of hieroglyphs in granite and diorite that I have seen. These hieroglyphs are absolutely amazing in their consistency of their draft angles, their - for all intents and purposes - dead sharp edges, and the flatness of the flat surfaces, even down in the small recesses. The symbols are cut approximately 3/8" deep, and are sometimes only 1/4" wide (my estimates based on long ago memories). DO go to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo some day and see these for yourself, or traipse around the Giza plateau, or travel down to Karnak, Aswan, Thebes, Memphis or Saqqara.

I can't pretend to be an expert on the waterways and pre-Columbian sites here, but I know Egyptian stuff quite well. Take it from me as a knowledgeable opinion: The Egyptians did NOT (with a few bad exceptions) cut stone in the fashion that Nova puts forward. They are simply wrong, in my very humble opinion. So why do they put forward such a theory? Simple: They are clutching at straws. There is simply no other option - except Chris Dunn's explanation, that the Egyptians could and did machine stone with some POWER to drive the cutting that we have not yet identified, AND with locational control far, far in excess of what our "modern" world in its hubris thinks is possible for people that long ago.

(Remember that their kind has only just in the last decade been brought kicking and screaming to CONSIDERING the view point that the people then could pilot boats well enough to reach the Americas. MANY of them still fight the idea. ONLY the vetting of the Monte Verde site FINALLY shot down their holy of holies, the Clovis Barrier. They function on such antiquated paradigms and resist nearly to their last breath anything approaching Diffusionism. How likely are they in our lifetime to admit that people 4,000 to 10,000 years ago had better technology than western Europe and America had in the 1800s? They are so sold on the superiority of western science and technology that only very heavy hammers will bust through their thick skulls.)

Back to the stone balls, to imagine that the indigenous peoples held - under control - the large stone balls, simultaneously turning them - under control of both rate of rotation and consistent direction - while some other person or persons - in some magically coordinated dance - had the ability to time their cantaloupe-sized stone dropping precisely to that rotation in 3-dimensions - all of this is a figment of the imagination. The coordination is superhuman and clearly impossible. The ball would come out oblate, 1,000,000 times out of 1,000,000. Which is more impossible - that they could coordinate that well, or that they had machining capabilities.

In the crystal skull show on network TV the other night the chief skeptic, the lady from the Smithsonian who also wrote a skeptical article in Discover Magazine this month about them, had as her SOLE argument about their validity that they showed machining markings. Her hubris? That no one before our time could machine anything. Therefore machining marks = fraud. It is simple for her, a case of black and white.

BUT SHE IS WRONG.

They MAY still be hoaxes, yes. But not for the reasons she claims. Machining WAS done long, long ago.

All of archeology accepts that as an impossibility. Hence, their own fraud against the people of the world, in trying to convince them that Egyptians cut stone with stone balls.

And they are wrong.

Look at Chris' site.

- - - - Steve

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